Record temperatures in Tennessee depleted oxygen levels in a private pond, killing at least 10,000 Bluegills and leaving them to rot in the sun.

Escalin Tabera stands at a fountain in the Lower East Side neighborhood of New York City. Temperatures have been soaring in cities across the U.S., including New York, Washington and Knoxville, Tenn.

By:Anita LiStaff Reporter, Published on Mon Jul 09 2012

Thousands of fish have succumbed to the fiery heat wave that has swept most of the United States, experts say.

City of Knoxville officials in Tennessee, one of at least five states reporting dead fish, said record temperatures depleted oxygen levels in a private local pond, killing at least 10,000 bluegills, according to Knoxville News Sentinel.

The fish surfaced belly-up and began to rot in the heat, the newspaper reported.

City officials removed most the mess last week, according to David Brace, the city’s director of public service.

The extreme heat has also caused at least 46 deaths across the country. Deaths have been reported in Tennessee, Illinois, Maryland, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

Over in Washington, soaring temperatures caused a minor snafu at Reagan National Airport, when a Charleston-bound flight got stuck while attempting to leave, Washington Post reported.

Last Friday, the near-40 degree weather softened the airport paving enough to immobilize the plane, the newspaper said.

“It was apparently a soft spot caused by the heat,” said airline spokeswoman Michelle Mohr. After a three-hour delay, a large tow vehicle successfully pulled the plane out of its rut, and passengers took off.

This week, Americans will get some relief, as temperatures approach normal from the Midwest to the East Coast.

A cold front that swept southward on Sunday ushered in cooler temperatures that are more typical for mid-July, according to Chris Vaccaro, a Washington-based spokesman for the National Weather Service.

“In some cases, temperatures have gone from 15 to 20 degrees above normal to about 5 degrees below normal,” he told the Star. “This cold front brought much-needed and long overdue heat relief.”

Over the weekend, it soared past 40 C in Washington, but that fell to 29 C on Monday — below the average of 31 C.

“We saw more than a dozen states with heat advisories and excessive heat warnings,” said Vaccaro. “They were breaking temperatures on record for the calendar day and in some cases, they were setting monthly records and even all-time record highs.”

To stay cool, many Americans have stuck to tried-and-true methods, such as swimming and shopping in air-conditioned stores.